Many pantyhose currently being manufactured are provided with a separately knit, usually diamond-shaped, crotch patch which is sewn in position in the crotch area when two pantyhose blanks are sewn together. This procedure is both costly and time consuming because the crotch patch or gusset is separately knit and then must be cut to shape before it is manually sewn into the preslit pantyhose blanks.
The Albert C. Gaither U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,156 recognizes the desirability and advantages of providing ventilation in the crotch area of a pantyhose and discloses the use of a separately knit diamond-shaped crotch patch which is knit of an open mesh of "fishnet" construction. However, this separately knit crotch patch must be cut to shape and then sewn in position in the crotch of the pantyhose and it still does not provide the desirable moisture-absorbing characteristics.
In order to provide both ventilation and moisture-absorbing characteristics, it is the present practice to cut crotch patches from a separately knit two-layer fabric with the outer layer being knit of a stretchable nylon yarn and the inner layer being knit of a moisture-absorbing or hydrophilic yarn, such as cotton. The two layers are integrally knit together at spaced-apart locations and are provided with openings to provide ventilation while the inner layer provides moisture-absorbing characteristics thereto. However, this type of two-layer crotch patch fabric is expensive to produce and still must be cut to shape and manually sewn into position in the crotch area of the pantyhose.